Tuesday, March 31, 2015

From Western New York-The chill wind and overcast sky provided verisimilitude Monday as a huddled figure wrapped in a thin blanket took his place on a park bench in Cathedral Park. The shape is completely draped in what almost looks like a shroud. Even the face is covered; all that is exposed is his feet, still showing the holes where they were pierced on the cross.

“Homeless Jesus,” a controversial sculpture by Canadian artist Timothy P. Schmalz, has found yet another home, this time in Buffalo. The bronze artwork will be officially unveiled downtown at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, in the shadow of St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral and steps away from the busy intersection of Church and Main streets. On hand for the ceremony will be the Rt. Rev. R. William Franklin, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Western New York, and the Very Rev. W.H. Mebane, interim dean of the cathedral. Joining them will be other local clergy and members of the St. Paul’s congregation, who paid for the sculpture and are donating it to the city.